Commercial establishments, e.g., retailers such as supermarkets, etc., sell a wide variety of liquid products in various types of containers. A specific example of a liquid product is a liquid laundry detergent sold in relatively large plastic containers having a screw-type cap or closure. Vendees or customers, or consumers of such liquid products frequently discard the containers after using the contents thereof The discarded empty containers then migrate into a waste disposal area such as a landfill.
If an alternate system were used whereby the customer would bring back the empty original container to the commercial establishment for refilling the container using a user-friendly method (as will be described below in connection with the present invention), then the following benefits may be attained:
1. The commercial establishment can profitably vend or sell the liquid product for the refilling at a price significantly lower than the original sales price; such lower price will financially motivate the customer to return the empty container for refilling. The commercial establishment will use relatively low cost bulk quantities of the liquid product for the refilling; this will facilitate a strong profit margin for the commercial establishment.
2. The refilling and reuse of the containers breaks the cycle of xe2x80x9cuse and discardxe2x80x9d, i.e., keeps empty containers out of the landfills with the obvious benefit to society.
Thus the present invention provides financial benefits to both the commercial establishment/vendor and the consumer/vendee while also facilitating a reduction in solid waste as a benefit to society.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,929,818 to Bradbury, et al., discloses a method and apparatus for vending a containerized product on multiple occasions. A customer initially purchases a fluid-filled container with a bar code that indicates the price of the container and fluid. Upon emptying the container, the customer returns to the store and refills the container at a refill station. The refill station modifies the bar code on the container to indicate that the container has been refilled. Thus, when the customer checks out, he or she is only charged for the refill, and not the container. A major disadvantage of the system disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,929,818 is that it requires a relatively complex apparatus for modifying the bar code on the container to indicate that the container has been refilled. This complexity has been avoided by my invention.
In broad terms, the present invention provides a method of vending a containerized liquid product to a vendee utilizing an original container for said liquid product. Parenthetically, at the time of the original purchase of the original container of the liquid product, the container had thereon a machine-readable indicia such as a bar code or the like indicative of the liquid product and of the original sales price of the container as filled with the liquid product. After the original container had been emptied of the liquid product, then the invention provides for multiple refillings of the liquid product into the original container. The machine-readable indicia on the container is utilized to actuate the refilling of the container and, after each refilling of the container, the method dispenses to the refill vendee a discount coupon to be presented to the vendor""s check-out station, together with the refilled container, whereby the price charged to the vendee by the vendor is the original sales price, less the value of the discount coupon.
Another important aspect of my invention is that the basic concept can be expanded to provide for the vending of a plurality of containerized liquid products respectively into a plurality of original refillable containers from a single dispensing station. For this case, each of the plurality of liquid products having been originally vended in an original refillable container (which may be of different diameters) having a unique machine-readable indicia thereon indicative of the liquid product in said original refillable container, and the original sales price thereof prior to the first refilling thereof For each refilling of a selected refillable container with the matching liquid product, then a discount coupon is dispensed to the refill vendee which then may be present to the vendors customer checkout station, together with the matching refilled container.
Another important aspect of my invention is that the liquid refilling method includes a vertically oriented liquid filling pipe or probe having an outlet and being positioned over a filling opening in an original container, and further being adapted to be vertically moveable with respect to the original container and being sized to freely enter the filling opening. The filling pipe or probe is inserted into the refillable container through the opening until the outlet is adjacent the bottom of the refillable container, following which the container is filled with a preselected volume of the liquid product. This is an important feature because it tends to prevent any foaming of the liquid as it is being transferred into the container.
Another aspect of my invention is to provide an additional marketing function to the method in connection either with the single product or multiple product versions discussed above by dispensing to the refill vendee, at the time of dispensing said discount coupon, at least one additional coupon or marketing message.
Another advantage of the present invention is that it can be linked to an inventory control management system whereby data is collected on the volume, on a product-by-product basis, of sales of the liquid products to thereby permit either the supplier to automatically restock the product or products at the appropriate time, and/or the retailer to automatically order from the supplier at the appropriate time.